The thrill of excavating and then naming a 50 ton rock

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During construction at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, a contractor found a large rock:

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In June, Pitelka was on the job for Walsh Construction, working on an early-stage project for O’Hare’s multibillion-dollar terminal modernization project when he, together with bulldozer operator Matt Tracy, dug up a boulder weighing 50 tons…

Often, he says, contractors ask construction workers to bury boulders or break them up into little pieces — it’s cheaper, he says, than moving them. “It makes me sick to my stomach,” Pitelka said, recalling a particularly beautiful set of blue granite boulders in Plainfield that ended up buried under a residential job site…

A lot of excavators, he says, dream of one day digging up a dinosaur. As for himself, he’d love to find a meteorite.

The rock was then placed elsewhere on the O’Hare site:

The rock is now on public display, having been moved to the airport’s Multi-Modal Facility — home to airport rental car operations, a people mover stop and Metra and Pace connections — at 10255 W. Zemke Boulevard…

The Aviation Department has launched a naming contest for the rock and is soliciting submissions from the public. Early name proposals — of which the city has received more than 2,300 — have included Da Layover, Jean Baptiste Point du Pébble, Ferris Boulder and The BaRock Obama Presidential Memorial Airport Boulder, according to CDA spokesperson Kevin Bargnes. Aviation Department staff will choose finalists, and the final choice will be made by public vote.

I do not think often what might be underground. The most I see around is a little bit down in our garden or in recently digging down to put in a new mailbox post. Occasionally a pipe might burst or road need repairing and people then get to look into a large hole or trench.

Putting this large rock aboveground provides people a hint of what is underground. Yet, the public display does not help us know if such rocks are part of ridges or are just singular rocks occasionally present. Could there be large rocks under my house or school or local library or under a pond?

If there were more ways for people to visualize what is underground or what is in the sky, I wonder if this would lead to acting differently. It’s one thing to say don’t pour wastewater or oil in sewers or on the ground and another to consider how this could affect what is underground (including groundwater and creatures). Or what goes on with birds and particles in the sky when people release items that float upwards out of their hands. They may not be excited as this contractor about rocks but knowing how what happens above them and below them affects their well-being could be helpful.

What could happen to American cities if a Yellowstone volcano erupts

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Two scholars describe the possible lead-up to and the aftermath of a Yellowstone volcano eruption. Even as Yellowstone is fairly remote and nearby evacuation could take place if there are clear warning signs, such an eruption would affect bigger cities:

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Expanding gases and intense heat drive this material upwards, creating a vast eruption column rising 30–50 kilometres into the atmosphere – far above commercial passenger aircraft, which usually cruise at up to about 13 kilometres. On this clear morning, its upper reaches are visible from Denver, some 800 kilometres away…

As the magma continues to escape, sections of the unsupported ground subside, opening new fractures and vents while feeding further eruptive columns and pyroclastic density currents. Hundreds of kilometres away – in Denver and along the Canadian border – heavy ashfall darkens the sky, obstructs roads and disrupts power, water supplies and communications. This ash devastates farmland across at least eight states…

Within Wyoming and neighbouring states, conditions are catastrophic. Billings, Montana, the nearest large city, is disappearing beneath what will eventually exceed a metre of ash (one published model of a Yellowstone supereruption predicts the city as receiving up to 1.8 metres of ash). Salt Lake City, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, receive tens of centimetres. For southern Canada, much of the US and northern Mexico, day becomes twilight and breathing outdoors without masks becomes increasingly difficult. People on other continents watch in trepidation under vivid, red-orange sunrises and sunsets…

Large areas close to Yellowstone remain evacuated, while across the US, shelter, fuel, food and clean water become increasingly scarce. Some countries airlift or airdrop humanitarian relief supplies, but are also concerned about stockpiling for themselves. Losses to agriculture, transport and insurance – with many other businesses and services closed – could lead Canada, Mexico and most Caribbean and Central American countries to declare states of emergency. This is partly due to direct impacts on those countries and partly due disruption across the USA and people fleeing from it…

In the years following the eruption, the world moves into long-term recovery and rebuilding. People across the world adapt to a more agrarian lifestyle, learning to fill the land with root vegetables, grains and legumes. With far less leisure time and diminished income, recreational facilities are turned over to food production, notably small-scale greenhouses and vertical farming for producing varied fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.

It sounds like an eruption would have a major impact on American cities. The focus in the analysis is on civilization more broadly but this often means big cities and their surrounding regions. If infrastructure (water, electricity, gas lines, roads, flights, etc.) and food supplies are severely disrupted, this knocks out some of the key supporters of current urban life. What exactly disappears or changes is less clear here but at the least it sounds like people and communities would need to spend a lot more time acquiring supplies and resources. This would disrupt work, school, local government plus day to day life.

What could realistically be done to prepare for this? Such events are rare. This reminds me of conversations about cities and resilience, the ability to respond effectively to whatever disaster might come. Whether a hurricane or a blizzard or an attack or a breakdown of a major system, cities likely have plans coordinate efforts and address needs.

It would still be hard for many residents of American metropolitan regions to imagine that a volcano far away could seriously disrupt their life. But affect the atmosphere on a global scale and urban and suburban life as we know it might not be the same.

An ongoing question: will higher gas prices in the US lead to less driving?

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If gas prices do indeed keep going up, how might this affect all the driving that takes place in the United States? An ongoing public discussion or debate involves the price point that would push more Americans to not drive. At some point, the assumption is that people would drive less because they cannot afford it.

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I would counter that many Americans cannot afford to not drive. How would people get to work or school? Gas might get expensive but there are few travel alternatives in many American communities.

Perhaps we have some newer solutions to these questions:

-Remote work and school. It may not be ideal and a global pandemic pushed the country into this in the past but having really expensive gas would be a major problem for many people.

–Deliveries via truck make a lot of the economy work. But what if more goods could be delivered via drone? Or electric vehicles?

-Fleets of electric cars ferrying people around. I don’t know if we have a critical mass of these vehicles but since many vehicles sit parked much of the day, could they be used continuously to get people around?

Put another way, what would Americans give up in their lives if gas becomes more expensive? Driving for fun might be first to go but what comes next?

Lots of material to study + limited time = a long time sitting

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A number of my research projects over the years have led to this scenario:

-I am in an archive or a library and there are lots of texts and artifacts I need to look at.

-The archive or library has their standard hours and I cannot spend endless time or days in the facility.

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Because these materials are hard to find elsewhere (though the wonders of Interlibrary Loan has brought many things directly to me), I need to focus while there. This means I have a day – or multiple days – of focused sitting in front of me. There is not time for walking around, checking email, or eating. I need to get through the materials, figure out what might contribute to my project, and make sure I have that evidence to take with me. I need to be reading, processing, typing.

The last time I did this, I had a stack of books I needed to go through. I had one work day to do the work (which was a little shorter because of some driving time to get there). I sat for nearly five hours with one short bathroom break. I had headphones on listening to some good music and had a good window seat (but barely looked outside).

Was it fun? How did I feel afterward? It was work. My body felt tense afterward. But I had pages of notes. I was able to verify some needed information across sources and also see some different interpretations across the works. I took pictures of images in the books that I could use in a presentation.

From my point of view, the focused time that day paid off. The sitting and studying accomplished the task. I could not do the same routine every day. Even though I have found I can do it in stretches when I have more days and certain places have the materials I need, the variety of doing other things in my job helps.

I suppose this could be explained by being in a “flow state” as I focus intently on some subject I am interested in. It is also something I learned while conducting research. What do I need to look for when analyzing materials? What is the best way to organize my notes? What provides me the evidence I can then use later? Learning research methods involves forms of data collection and analysis but it also includes habits and dispositions and actions on the part of researchers.

Resistance to Flock cameras but willingness to add doorbell cameras and maybe toothbrush cameras?

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Flock cameras are facing resistance in a number of American communities. But why such resistance when Ring cameras are common and other home devices can have cameras? Indeed, many consumer products can contain cameras:

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This week at the international home appliance exhibition IFA 2026 in Berlin, appliance maker Miele unveiled a smart dishwasher. It comes with an app so you can keep tabs on its performance, and the ability to automatically run during off-peak electricity hours.   It’s also equipped with a camera on the inside of the door, all the better to monitor your dishes and make sure the machine can accurately meet your “personal preferences” when it comes to washing them.

Cameras have been the name of the game in the appliance world for some time now. Smart ovens, refrigerators, and doorbells have all gotten the camera treatment, attempting to close the gaps of mystery in our daily lives. Miele isn’t the only company joining in on the trend this month: Dyson just rolled out a $500 electric toothbrush that uses a tiny, 100,000-pixel macro-lens camera to livestream what’s going on in your mouth, as you brush, to an audience of one (you). Allegedly, these cameras help everything run easier, and faster. The dishwasher camera tailors washes for optimal energy efficiency and finally solves the mystery of what goes on inside there during the cycle. The toothbrush camera targets interdental cleaning, helping your teeth stay in pristine condition between dentist-office cleanings. The fridge camera can track your groceries, and the doorbell camera clears up any confusion around who might be at your door while you’re away.

For consumer products, potential buyers can decide not to buy them. As of now, there are plenty of toothbrush and dishwasher and refrigerator options without cameras. That could change in the future but if there are not sales for these devices, that might not happen.

Perhaps people are more okay when they feel they can control the camera more. A dishwasher camera is hopefully only going to look in the dishwasher. The owner can disable the camera or control the machine if desired. Or perhaps they trust Miele, a company, more than law enforcement, with whatever data the camera generates. And plenty of households have smart devices that can listen.

The trade-off of privacy for new technology started a long time ago. Having cameras everywhere is not inevitable. The Flock cameras could proliferate because many residents and communities are worried about crime. Ring cameras are common because residents were worried about their property. People will accept cameras if they feel they get something sufficient in return. Some are not feeling that way about Flock cameras. They might feel better toward toothbrush cameras in the future. If a toothbrush camera could reduce the need for dentist visits, would people purchase them? I’m sure someone is trying to figure what it would take.

Performance vehicle in advertisement traveling at 36 mph

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There are many commercials for cars, trucks, and SUVs. They highlight the excitement and comfort one can experience in the moving vehicle.

However, the vehicles in the ads are often not moving very fast. The drives shown on screen are leisurely drives down calm streets. This was highlighted again for me in an ad where the speedometer showed the expensive and powerful vehicle going 36 miles per hour. This is a typical drive on an American road.

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Why not show more vehicles going down calm highways at higher speeds? Why not show more regular driving situations many Americans face where a faster speed makes sense (excluding going 40+ in a residential area or going way over the speed limit on a highway)?

Two hypothesis come to mind:

  1. Feedback shows people respond well to seeing new vehicles in calm driving environments. People have enough stress driving every day. They associate a new vehicle with a calmer experience, even if that does not happen in their daily life with the vehicle.
  2. The car companies have limited locations where they can film advertisements and promotional material. Some of the same sites keep showing up. Filming in regular driving situations is hard or impossible.

Americans may like the idea of driving but reminding them of the stresses of daily driving may not motivate them to buy a new car. Even expensive cars do not make it easier to avoid traffic or turn traffic lights in your favor or significantly change travel times.

Which residents might benefit if property taxes are reduced or eliminated

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As numerous states in the United States consider eliminating property taxes, which residents would benefit? An argument about what could happen in Florida:

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If retirees on fixed incomes can’t afford their insurance payments and families can’t figure out how to cover their tax bill, maybe. Yet the number of Florida homes and buildings that are delinquent on their property taxes has fallen slightly since 2020. The number of foreclosures has increased a bit, but remains low. The state’s housing market is fraying and distressed sales are increasing, but that’s because of climate change and mortgage rates, not tax assessments. Floridians may not like paying a higher tax bill, and carrying costs might be spurring some of them to downsize. But in general, property taxes are levied on people who can afford them. The typical homeowner earns twice as much as the typical renter, and has 43 times the net worth.

Tenants are “the loser in all this,” Ken Johnson, a professor of finance at the University of Mississippi, told me. Many cities and counties offset lower taxes on owner-occupied properties with higher taxes on commercial residential properties. Landlords pass those costs on to their renters. The policy will also benefit longtime homeowners at the expense of prospective homebuyers. Low property taxes increase home prices, making it harder for people without a lot of money in the bank—such as new parents and just-married couples—to get approved for a mortgage. Then they remain tenants, subject to never-ending rent increases.

In addition to distorting the housing market, Amendment 3 will devastate public finances. Property taxes provide 43 percent of revenue to Florida’s municipal general funds, the bank accounts that cities and counties use to finance day-to-day services. Amendment 3 will cut collections by as much as 30 percent, and will hit hardest in areas with a lot of homes and not a lot of commerce. To cover the $12 billion budget hole, cities and towns will likely raise or impose sales taxes and sin taxes; increase fees at the DMV, permit offices, registrars, and courts; charge more for waste removal and water; and put additional taxes on tourists. The state will trade out a solidly progressive, uniformly applied tax for an obscure, regressive mishmash of charges.

But municipalities aren’t expected to make up all of the lost revenue. They’re expected to cut. Amendment 3 explicitly protects tax financing streams for schools, meaning that cities and counties are contemplating draconian budget reductions for public-safety offices, libraries, after-school programs, summer camp, day care, flood prevention, public transit, roads, parks, senior services, homeless shelters, legal-aid clinics, domestic-violence shelters, and many other things. Austerity will be regressive too, harming the poor more than the wealthy. Rich Floridians aren’t relying on the bus to get to work. They’re not picking up free meals, taking adult-literacy classes at the library, or seeing a dentist at a pop-up clinic in a middle-school gymnasium either.

These predictions suggest an immediate reduction or removal of property taxes could prove popular with homeowners but has longer-term consequences for those who are not homeowners and for communities at large who will have to adjust their tax base.

Is this then similar to the mortgage-interest deduction that tends to benefit people who are already financially okay? Is there a way to reduce property taxes for all residences?

Thinking more broadly, is there any way that Americans who live in or own different property types could work together to address their concerns about property taxes and local revenues? While homeowners might be fed up with rising property taxes, how does this intersect with concerns about tax breaks given to data centers or whatever is the latest development rage? Or the work of business owners to limit their local taxes when local schools and other amenities benefit from such monies? Or local government bodies raising rates in order to have the revenues they say they need to provide local services?

If the different actors are trying to find a good advantage for themselves, their actions could impact others. Perhaps it is time more communities have conversations about taxes and services. What are their priorities? What do they need? What issues do they each face? They might not agree and communities or states might take different approaches but they might find some common ground or new approaches.

400+ focus groups of voters shows human nature of voters?

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After conducting hundreds of focus groups with voters in the United States, one commentator describes the participants:

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Since that moment, I’ve conducted more than 400 focus groups with thousands of voters across the political spectrum. To my knowledge, this is the largest and most consistent qualitative study of voter sentiment during the Trump era. Here’s what I’ve learned: People are wild. They are full of contradictions. They lament our deep political divisions while raging about their political enemies. They believe in grace but cut their Trumpy brother out of their life forever. They’re married to an immigrant but voted for the guy who wants to deport millions of people who have the same immigration status as their wife. They hate the government and want to lower the national debt, but they also want the government to spend more to help them and their communities. They call themselves pro-life but believe in a woman’s right to choose. I could go on.

This suggests voters have multiple motivations and opinions. They are not necessarily consistent in their principles and actions. They react to both what is immediately around them and broader social forces and changes.

In other words, the voters are people. They are doing their best to make sense of the world around them. Translating those beliefs and responses into neatly packaged political party platforms or bundles of issues that candidates consistently talk about is not easy.

With all that said, listening to voters can be helpful:

Listening to voters is a cheat code for understanding politics—democracy, after all, is the collective will of the voters—yet few people in politics do it. If you’re running a campaign, you might do a series of focus groups with voters in your district or state. If you’re a politician, you might go on “listening tours,” chat with people at the state fair, or host campaign events. But rarely do politicians and campaigns take the time to talk in-depth about why people feel the way they do.

The reality is, the closer you get to institutional politics, the further you are from the people whom politics and government are supposed to serve. Washington is less a swamp than a bubble, inside of which the rest of America becomes an abstraction.

Where is there room to find common ground or interests? Are there ways to connect with what people are experiencing or care about beyond providing talking points and political tactics?

This could also be linked to the reasons Americans often like local politics and government: these are potential neighbors who have more of a stake and interest in day-to-day community life. Go up to the regional or state or national level and it can be hard to connect to all the experiences and concerns voters have.

Industry and urban life lead to the disappearance of a flower in Chicago

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The case of thismia americana illustrates how human development can affect plants:

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In 1912, then a botany student at the University of Chicago, she was collecting moss in a swampy prairie at what is now 119th Street and Torrence Avenue when she happened upon this small, strange plant.

At the time of Pfeiffer’s discovery, there were only 18 known species in the Thismia genus, the most similar being Thismia rodwayi, a plant native to Australia and New Zealand. Thismia americana was the first of its genus found in the Northern Hemisphere…

However, in 1914, Pfeiffer reported a barn was built atop the site where Thismia americana was found. According to a journal entry, Pfeiffer last saw the plant in 1916…

“We’re very unlikely to ever find Thismia [americana] there again, because the history of that site is that it was a wetland complex, and then humans filled it in with a bunch of construction debris, soil, concrete, slag from the steel industry,” says Harry Kuttner, Calumet program manager at the Wetlands Initiative.

Nevertheless, scientists hope that Thismia americana could be found again. Over the past decades, organizations around Chicago have taken steps to restore the city’s green spaces, including Indian Ridge Marsh Park, where Thismia americana was discovered.

The story of this flower is one reminder of what was once there. So is the flooding that can arise after major rains.

The Chicago area has been under construction for two plus centuries now as European and American visitors came to the region and sought to build permanent settlements. This work can involve altering the landscape for human activities. Wetlands across the region were filled in and smoothed over for farming, residences, and industry. There are some wetlands still remaining and often local residents who advocate for keeping them.

As some species disappear, others might do well in sprawl. What plants replaced thismia americana in the ecosystem? How did wetlands adapt? Even as forest preserves as other spaces try to preserve natural areas within the region, the wetlands are not what they once were as human activity has affected the landscape.

When affordable housing is not affordable to those with few resources

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Who can access affordable housing in American communities?

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The poorest people in the U.S. face the most acute shortages of affordable homes. But the majority of low-income housing financed in recent years is for those earning 50% of an area’s median income or above, according to a survey of state housing agencies.

Some cities are now seeing an uptick in vacancies as rents for these units approach market rates. The result: Apartments designated as affordable sit empty because the poorest of the poor cannot afford them…

There are only about 4 million affordable rental units available for the country’s 11 million extremely low-income renter households, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s most recent annual report…

Yet homes set aside for these renters were only about 12% of the affordable housing units financed in 2024 by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit — a federal program providing tax credits to developers in exchange for keeping rents low for at least 30 years, according to figures from the National Council of State Housing Agencies.

This fits with what I have seen with affordable housing in suburbs. When communities are willing to approve and go ahead with affordable housing, they limit the number of units available and the units are priced closer to the market rates than nothing.

So (1) where would such housing be located and (2) who would build it? Communities would need to approve housing for the poorest people living in the US. Few might be willing to do this. And even with incentives (such as the LIHTC noted above), what builders or developers would be interested in constructing these units?

The American public may have soured on public housing but it did provide a housing option for those who needed it. If there are not enough units available in the private market, where are they supposed to come from? And there needs to be some public and political will to address this concern or housing will continue to be for thseo with more resources.